


Where our hearts will pray

by Vampiric_Charms



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 20:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13174575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: Maglor makes an unexpected discovery during his travels at the same time an adventurous hobbit with a word of advice makes an unexpected discovery of him.





	Where our hearts will pray

**Author's Note:**

> Oh _heeeeyyy_ , fandom I've been absent from for a long long time. Apparently all it takes to spark some odd bits of creativity is to watch Fellowship and let my angst come out. And yes, you did read the character tags correctly.
> 
> Enjoy!

****The cold _seeped_ in a way it never used to in his youth, creeping under his skin and through his bones to leave him shivering in the biting wind as it blew up from the deep canyon at his side, a river dividing it far below.  Maglor tugged his oilskin cloak close, pulling away from the cliffside and trudging closer to the mountain.  Cold seemed to be the only thing that cut him now, leaving pain the way the sharp rockface under his palm did not.  The days and weeks and months and years and centuries had blurred since Maedhros had left him alone; all he knew was that it was raining, that it was dark, and he was cold.  A faint, ignorable hunger tickled in his stomach.

Clouds broke slowly as he walked and walked, pack slung with a small harp over his back, weapons forever strung to his belt, and the moon finally peeked through the scattered treetops to cast a glittering haze over the wet road at his feet.

Flickering light could be seen ahead through the treeline, and Maglor warily made his way forward, curious despite the heavy grey fog so densely present in his mind.  He rarely came across settlements he wished to forway into, but he was still interested in discovering the advancements of Men throughout Middle Earth in his own itinerant silence.  He tucked some low-lying tree branches away to reveal once more the steep cliff down to the roaring river, fat with rain.  

Lights dotted far across the canyon in a settlement not raised by Men, but rather by Elves in all their architectural glory, and Maglor took a startled step backward into the trees again, heart pounding against his throat as the branches rocked back and released a small deluge of water from their leaves.

Fear rose now, far starker than the cold, and he took several more steps back, his feet oddly loud on the sodden earth.  This was not somewhere he wanted to be, this was not -

“Ho there, traveller!”

Maglor spun, hand instinctively reaching for the knife held on his belt after a lifetime of blood and death, but where his eyes expected to find an elf, he saw no one.  His fingers slid away from the hilt of the dagger, confused and nearly believing he was hearing old ghosts, when the voice called again.

“You’ll have to look lower, my good friend, for I am far shorter than your kin.”

His sudden companion laughed heartily, and Maglor looked down this time to see a sturdy-seeming creature meandering by him on the dark road, walking stick in hand and a very hefty pack strapped to his back with plenty of cooking pans making such a din Maglor should have heard him coming.  He was not wearing any shoes.  Maglor stood back, bewildered, as the little man passed by him with another chuckle.

“Are you coming?” the stranger asked eagerly.  “We’ve almost arrived, after all, we may as well make our appearance together as friends now with so little distance left to travel.”

Still Maglor paused on the road near the trees, making no effort to follow.  The stranger paused then, as well, and turned back to look at him through the clear moonlight streaming down now from the sky.  His eyes were bright and keen, and he smiled kindly.  “I suppose you don’t take well to strangers, and that’s all right.  Many I met in Mirkwood were much the same!”  

He switched his walking stick to one hand and held out the other for Maglor to take in a tentative handshake.  “My name is Bilbo Baggins, hobbit of the Shire, pleasure to meet you out here.  Might I inquire as to your namesake, so we might not be strangers any longer?”

"Makalaurë,” Maglor replied after a moment’s hesitation, unsure of how widely known his name tended to be shared nowadays and how hated his family still was.  He released Bilbo’s small, calloused hand and withdrew his own nervously.  Bilbo did not show any outward reaction to the ancient moniker he had used, and Maglor glanced slightly over his shoulder to the flickering lights over the river.  “As it happens,” he said softly, “I simply came upon this place just now in my travels.  Whose house in this?”

“Oh ho!  This is Rivendell and the House of Elrond, you lucky fellow!  I’ve travelled a long way to return here,” he added with another large smile, “and I am eager to continue on my way.  And you, friend, will be welcomed with open arms and a grand feast if you come along!”    

Maglor’s world slowed, Bilbo, the rain dripping from trees, the rushing of the river beyond the canyon, the brightness of the moon - everything faded into a still, silent darkness as Maglor was pulled abruptly, violently into the memories always hounding inside his mind.  There was fire and blood and screaming, and such an intense emptiness, a loneliness that was so overwhelming Maglor never felt he would be rid of it, in all his many centuries of life.  All he had accomplished, all he had lived for, all he had loved, was demolished by the fire of hatred and evil found in himself, in his blood -

A small, gentle hand clasped around his wrist tugged his awareness back to the road, back to the silver moonlight, and Maglor blinked down at the little hobbit at his side.

“Are you quite all right?” Bilbo asked, letting him go but staying close.  “You seemed very - far away for a moment.”

Maglor nodded, giving a verbal answer in the affirmative, but still Bilbo watched him with those bright, keen eyes for several silent seconds and it seemed the hobbit must have understood something he did not say aloud.  He hummed gruffly and dug his stick into the ground, turning to continue on his journey when it became clear in that moment he would be going the way alone.

Before he made it five steps, Bilbo stopped and looked back.  “A word of advice,” he said, watching Maglor closely over the short distance.  “It is gentler on our souls in the long run to release the things causing us pain than it is to continue clinging to them.  Believe me,” he added with another of those deep laughs, “I just turned eleventy-one,” as if this would make a huge, deep impact on an elf who was older than Middle Earth itself.

He waved goodbye and turned, this for the final time, as he made his way down the path that led toward the cliffside and the river.

Maglor stared after him for a long, long while until even the hobbit’s loud singing was drowned out by the water far below.  A torrent was pulling him, tearing him to and fro, and Maglor did not yet move from the road, unsure of which direction he was meant to go.  His life was not meant to be one of love, of forgiveness, that had long been clear to him, and his soul, the soul Bilbo had advised him on, was tormented with so many things he could not even name.

It would be best to move on, to mark this place on his map and leave.

He slowly walked toward the treeline again and edged the branches aside, staring across the river, across the wide canyon, at the lights twinkling so far away.

 


End file.
